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加入时间: 2004/05/16 文章: 2187
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作者:jeramah 在 驴鸣镇 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
A notable episode during The Great Game involved a Russian expedition to Khiva in 1839. The nominal purpose of the mission was to free the slaves captured and sold by Turkmen raiders from the Russian frontiers on the Caspian Sea, but the expedition was also an attempt to extend Russia's borders while the British Empire entangled itself in the First Anglo-Afghan War. The expedition, led by General V.A. Perovsky, the commander of the Orenburg garrison, consisted of 5,200 infantry, and ten thousand camels. Due to poor planning and a bit of bad luck, they set off in November 1839, into one of the worst winters in memory, and were forced to turn back on 1 February 1840, arriving back into Orenburg in May, having suffered over a thousand casualties without having fired a single shot.
The painter Vasily Vereshchagin was present at the taking of Khiva by Russian forces in 1873.
At the same time, Britain, anxious to remove the pretext for the Russian attempt to annex Khiva, launched its own effort to free the slaves - a lone officer stationed in Herat, now in Afghanistan. Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, set off on Christmas Eve, 1839, for Khiva. He arrived in late January 1840 and, although the khan was suspicious of his identity, he succeeded in talking the khan into allowing him to carry a letter for the tsar regarding the slave issue. He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk (Aqtau), and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. Yet his superiors in Herat, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant Richmond Shakespear, after him. Shakespear was evidently more successful than Abbott in that he somehow convinced the khan to not only free all Russian subjects under his control, but also make the ownership of Russian slaves a crime punishable by death. The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for the time being.
作者:jeramah 在 驴鸣镇 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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